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Does anyone understand the point of advertising a game doing something that, after downloading, it does not do?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
It seems like if what you're showing is what you understand they find appealing and fun, then surely that's what should be in the game. You give them that.
But instead, you give them something else that is unrelated to what they've seen on the ad? A gem matching candy crush clone they've seen a thousand times?
How is that model working? How is that holding up as a marketing technique???
Some of the responses here dance around the truth, but none of them hit the nail on the head. This is a bit of an artifact of how the mobile industry works and the success rate vs profitability vs the way ads work on mobile.
Yes, hands down, this is not an effective advertising strategy. Many of these game companies are very successful so it's not because they're stupid. It's because these ads aren't advertising campaigns.
These ads are market research. The point isn't to get you to download their game. At all. The point is to figure out what people will engage with.
These ads are all game ideas. Mobile game ideas are a dime a dozen million. They're easy to come up with, cost a lot to build, and many don't monetize well and therefore aren't profitable. Because of that, it's very expensive and unsustainable to build games and test them and see what succeeds.
Instead, companies come up with ideas, build a simple video demonstrating the idea, and put up ads with those videos. They then see how many people engage with the ads to determine how many people would even visit the download page for that game. Building a quick video is much much much cheaper than building a game. This is the first step in fast failing their ideas and weeding out bad ones.
Essentially the companies have lots of ideas, build lots of simple videos, advertise them all, and see which ones get enough engagement to be worth pursuing further, while the rest get dropped entirely.
But those ads need to link somewhere. So they link to the companies existing games. Because they're already paying for it. So why not.
But building a whole new game is also expensive. Dynamics in mobile gaming are very odd because of the way "the algorithm" works. It is actually extremely expensive to get advertising in front of enough people that enough download it that you have any meaningfully large player base to analyze at all.
So the next trick is these companies will take the successful videos, build "mini games" of those ads as a prototype, and then put that in their existing game. This means they can leverage their existing user base to test how much people will engage with the game, and more importantly, eventually test how well it monetizes. Their existing users have already accepted permissions, likely already get push notifications, and often already have their payment info linked to the app. It also means they don't have to pay for and build up a new store presence to get eyeballs on it. Many of the hurdles of the mobile space have already been crossed by their existing players, and the new ones who clicked the ads have demonstrated interest in the test subject. This is why many of the ads link to seemingly different games that have a small snippet of what you actually clicked on.
If these mini games then become successful enough, they will be made into their own standalone game. But this is extremely rare in mobile. The way the store algorithms and ads work make it pretty fucking expensive to get new games moving, so they really have to prove it to be worthwhile in the long run.
So yeah, most people look at this the wrong way - it does actually go against common sense advertising, but that's because it's not actually advertising. It's essentially the cheapest way for companies to get feedback from people that actually play mobile games about what kinds of games they would play.
It's not advertising. It's market analysis.
Your whole guess is incredibly well written and it’s also entirely wrong. Wanna know why? You’re about to feel really foolish.
You see the picture OP posted? Most will recognise it because regardless of theme (sometimes a long soldier fighting army other times it’s a person against a horde of undead etc) it’s an archetype that many of these ads use (others are the puzzle game with water, the rpg where you outfight or outfuck etc). Those archetypical fake games have been doing the rounds for literal years, some close to a decade. If they were prototypes or seeking audience interest they would exist by now or they would be much more varied. They don’t and they aren’t.
No, what you’re actually seeing is an artifact of the financial rewards a lack of interest and imagination can render if your audience is large enough - these ads aren’t selling the games they portray, they are the central player to a bait and switch strategy to farm people into generic games that harvest clicks, user data and money from the unsuspecting tech ilterate. These ads are not market research because those who publish already know their markets extremely well and they know down to the second what enough of the audience will do when faced with these bait and switch games.
That you attribute such grandiose cleverness to this scam is pretty sad.
Yeah, I don't feel foolish at all. I've explained this in other comments.
In summary:
I'm not claiming literally every instance is exactly what I'm describing, but it is a very common pattern.
Many of these ads are slight variations to test which performs better.
Many of the "which performs better" are run against long standing ads they've had to learn about how to advertise. They may never intend to release the games being advertised. They may know the ad does well, but they built a prototype game and it didn't monetize, so they'll never finish it or already killed it. But that doesn't stop them from running the same ad but with a different visual theme to see which visual theme is more popular right now.
Some of these ads are not run by dev studios but by advertisers or publishers.
Markets are not static - interest in themes, visual styles, and game genres are all extremely "seasonal" and keep changing. They do not "know their market extremely well" because interest keeps shifting. Companies will constantly run ads just to gauge what genres they should be thinking about and to track trends over time. IE, they may run the same exact strategy game ad for many years straight to determine the long term stability of strategy games. Without caring about the specific game idea in the ad itself.
I don't feel foolish, nor do I think it's "clever". I just know from first hand experience that this is how the market works.
Now who’s dancing around the point? The same half dozen vertical slices or renders have existed for years so why have exactly 0 been realised as games?
Because they aren’t games they are bait and switch adverts. There’s no market research campaigns and you’ve provided no fucking evidence for your claims at all. Your thesis is bunk and I think so are your claims to be a dev too.
Already covered above. They likely prototyped it and it didn't monetize well or something so they axed it.
Or they're neither, and they're just trying to gauge the market. But sure, you can believe whatever you want.
You haven't either. You're just assuming a) the worst and b) something that makes objectively less sense - if your whole premise is they're advertising something fake, how would this even work as bait and switch if people see that's not what the ad links to?
And your thesis is "I feel like it's bait and switch, so it is" and you have no claims of credibility. Nothing I say will prove to you that I've worked for some of the largest corporations in the US, so I can't change your mind.
The ad is for a single player mobile game - it has not been realised and in no way would there be ongoing costs that require it to be axed should a It sell poorly.
Honestly, you’re full of shit and should stop this bs about working in the industry. Here’s what a real mobile advertising company has to say on the matter - note that none of your bullshit is referenced at all.
Can't find the other comment you made about this anymore, but this is an advertising company that's helping devs advertise their games, so yeah, it's not going to talk about advertising non existent apps for market analysis. Instead it talks about twisting games to advertise them with exaggeration and weird hooks to try to convince people to download them.... Which is another shitty advertising practice in mobile gaming (yeah, there are a lot of them, shocker) and not really pertinent to the topic/OP.
I also find it funny you left the highlight showing you probably searched exactly for something that proved your point, but it's listed "exaggeration" in the heading which is entirely different.
The title of the article is literally: “Fake Mobile Game Ads: Why Do Advertisers Use Them?”
It covers many of the methods fake games are used as bait and switch marketing including hyperbole. You would know this if you actually read the article instead you searched for something in it to try and dissuade from the point of the article. If you’re a developer of any experience I’m a billionaire. Keep lying liar.